I have been reading this but not adding much Jajas because it has taken on a different angle than the one I had intended.
I was not really (in my mind)putting emphasis on the education aspect of poor quality indies because at the end of the day, if that's what people want to pay for....(crumbling roof, shoddy unqualified staff, poor OFSTED), then it really is up to them.
It's the embarrassing shallow pretentiousness which comes out of these types of schools which is my big issue (or may be it is just here!)
I am well spoken and so are my dc and they attend state schools, they are very smartly turned out, do well at sports, play musical instruments etc and we have a very warm and nurturing environment at home.
I went on to study at Cambridge despite having a father who thought books were untidy and I was not allowed any. The only way I could read was at night, in the moonlight as I was not allowed a bedside lamp.
Like I said before, I had far better and interesting conversations at University with multicultural students than with some of the appallingly narrow minded and intellectually uninspiring 'loftier than thou by virtue of my public school upbringing' types that live in this rural backwater.
It's the crass one upmanship, and a constant tension within the 'mwah mwah' culture to be seen at the right places and with the right people. Like I said before, this does not seem to exist amongst those who have nothing to prove, ie those who go to the better public schools or the seriously loaded/titled.
Perhaps it does not exist elsewhere but as a well spoken state educated/Cambridge grad with successful career with neatly dressed, equine obsessed, state educated dc the utter pretensiousness we come across regularly is just cringeworthy to the extreme. In this day and age it is embarrassing.